Dr. Passerin focuses her practice on counseling clients in protecting and litigating intellectual property, with an emphasis on the area of biotechnology.  She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.  Dr. Passerin was a summer associate at Cohen & Grigsby in 2002 and 2003.

Bar Admissions

• Pennsylvania
• U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania
• United States Patent and Trademark Office

Education

• J.D.; Certificate in Intellectual Property & Technology Law (magna cum laude; Order of the Coif; Law Review, Managing Editor; CALI Award in Patent Litigation; Semester Honors; Faculty Award for Excellence in Legal Scholarship; Beaver County Lawyers’ Auxiliary Award, 2001), University of Pittsburgh School of Law, 2004
• Ph.D., Neurobiology (John Houk Memorial Grant, 1996; Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research, 1996), Ohio University, 1997
• M.S., Neurobiology (Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research, 1992), Ohio University, 1993
• B.A., Biology and English, Washington and Jefferson College, 1991

Memberships

• Member, American Inns of Court, University of Pittsburgh School of Law Chapter

Seminars & Speeches

• Co-presenter, Muscimol injection into locus coeruleus attenuates foot shock-induced Fos expression in several CNS loci, Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society’s Annual Meeting, May 1999

Publications

• Co-author, Anatomical substrates for the central control of sympathetic outflow to interscapular adipose tissue during cold exposure, J. Comp. Neurol. 460:  303-26, 2003
• Co-author, The locus coeruleus, Barrington's nucleus, and neural circuits of stress, Physiol. Behav. 77: 737-742, 2002
• Co-author, Role of locus coeruleus in foot shock-evoked Fos expression in rat brain, Neurosci. 101: 1071-1082, 2000
• Co-author, GABA-mediated inhibition of raphe pallidus neurons regulates sympathetic outflow to brown adipose tissue, Am. J. Physiol. 276: R290-R297, 1999
• Co-author, Activation of bulbospinal serotonergic neurons during cold exposure, Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 77: 250-258, 1999
• Co-author, Stress-evoked activation of brain areas synaptically linked to the spleen, Society for Neuroscience Abstracts. 25: 700, 1999
• Co-author, Muscimol injection into locus coeruleus attenuates foot shock-induced Fos expression in several CNS loci, Neuroimmunomodulation. 6:241, 1999
• Co-author, Different pharmacologic activators of the sympathetic nervous system cause a differential alteration of spleen lymphocyte mitogenic function, The FASEB J. 12: A888, 1998
• Co-author, Activation of spinal cord serotonergic neurons accompanies cold-induced sympathoexcitation, Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 72:  884-92, 1994
  

Prior Experience

• Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Pittsburgh Department of Neuroscience
• Extern, University of Pittsburgh Office of Technology Management
• Intern, The Honorable Carol Los Mansmann, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
• Teaching Assistant, Ohio University Department of Biological Sciences